PM aides: Olmert won't respond to Ch. 10 Winograd report leaks

Sources close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have said the prime minister and his associates will not respond to the portions of the Winograd Committee interim report broadcast last night on Channel 10.

"This is a tactical problem," a source close to Olmert conceded Saturday night.

The leak of sections of the Winograd Committee interim report has caught Olmert's people in the midst of preparations for the publication of the report and has put them in an inferior position in the media arena in which the battle for public opinion is being waged that will decide Olmert's political future.

Meretz chairman MK Yossi Beilin has already called for Olmert's resignation. "If after publication of the report by the committee he himself set up at his convenience Olmert stays in office, the public in Israel will lead him out of it," he said.

MK Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor) also called for Olmert to resign. Pines-Paz, who is a candidate for the head of the Labor Party, was a member of the cabinet during the war. He also called on Peretz to resign. In response, an Olmert associate said, "He was a member of the cabinet. Why didn't he (Pines-Paz) resign? He resigned because Lieberman joined, not because of the war."

Olmert's advisers intend to reiterate Sunday, after the interim report is released, that the decision to go to war was taken by the entire cabinet, and was supported by the Knesset and the public.

MK Benjamin Netanyahu's (Likud) media adviser Ophir Akunis said, "Netanyahu and the Likud acted responsibly while Israel was in a military conflict. We backed the goals of the war, which unfortunately were not fulfilled."

The soft underbelly of Olmert's own Kadima Party is believed to be causing the prime minister more concern than the opposition. However, Olmert does not expect Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a challenger to his leadership, to come out against him soon.

Olmert's advisers, Ovad Yehezkiel and cabinet secretary Israel Maimon, have asked Kadima ministers and MKs to make themselves available to the media to support Olmert tomorrow after the report is released.